- Medicaid managed-care provider Centene Corp. is buying insurer Health Net in a $6.8 billion cash and stock deal. Centene will pay $28.25 and 0.622 shares of Centene stock per Health Net share of common stock for an implied price of $78.57 per share. That is 21% greater than Health Net's closing price on Wednesday. Both companies have seen expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Medicaid managed care is “definitely an area of growth” for publicly traded companies and that is expected to continue with the Affordable Care Act as “an accelerant,” said Barclays Capital analyst Joshua Raskin.
- Ambulatory services jobs grew by 22,600 in June, but that sector didn't add as many jobs as it did over the past two months, according to seasonally adjusted numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Hospitals added 10,600 jobs and nursing homes added 6,900 jobs in June. Outpatient services added 2,500 jobs, and home health hired 5,300 more people. Healthcare overall added 40,100 jobs last month, but that overall growth was still down 15.6% from the updated figure of 47,500 healthcare jobs created in May. The U.S. economy overall added 223,000 jobs—with about 1 in 6 of those in healthcare—and the unemployment rate declined to 5.3% in June from 5.5% in May.
- EHR vendor Allscripts will collaborate with Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong's NantHealth precision medicine startup on a platform for cancer care. Allscripts purchased a 10% equity stake in NantHealth for $200 million in cash. In turn, NantCapital, Soon-Shiong's personal investment vehicle, made a $100 million investment in Allscripts through a private placement of the company's common stock. The move comes as Soon-Shiong tells Modern Healthcare that NantHealth will part ways with Renton, Wash.-based Providence Health and Services, where Soon-Shiong has served as global director of cancer services and bioinformatics. He said the 27-hospital system has a strong delivery system but lacks an organizational understanding of bioinformatics and molecular medicine. NantHealth also announced last week that it plans to go public by year-end.
Centene Corp. is buying insurer Health Net in $6.8B deal, and other briefs
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